These days, there are plenty of ways to get creative and experimental in your intimate life. You can introduce multiple partners, indulge in some foreplay, and scheme up your greatest fantasies. The world is your oyster and the bedroom is your playground. But what happens when you want to introduce something a bit more risque and are afraid of what your partner may think? This is the truth for many of those wanting to bring rainbow kissing into the bedroom.

Going viral on TikTok as people reacted to finding out about this NSFW act, a rainbow kiss is one of the many fluid fetishes slowly making its way out of the shadows and kinky reddit rooms and into mainstream conversation. Here’s more about what exactly is a rainbow kiss, and how to navigate introducing it into the bedroom.

What Is a Rainbow Kiss?

While the name sounds like something much more PG, a rainbow kiss happens when two partners (one with a uterus and the other with a penis) go down on each other while one is menstruating and kiss after ejaculation, mixing blood and semen with their mouths in the process. It’s typically practiced in the 69 position and is said to be both cathartic and deeply binding. Couples who have brought it into their bedrooms note feeling much closer to each other afterward and note the climax to be particularly stronger than usual.

It’s most certainly not for those who prefer a more vanilla sex life, and is equally intriguing for those who dare to get risky. But though it’s one of the many fluid fetishes people enjoy, it remains much less talked about due to societal taboos and potential health risks.

Is a Rainbow Kiss Safe?

Ultimately, any exchange of bodily fluids poses some kind of health risk, though they vary by severity. Semen and period blood can both carry lots of different infectious particles, including HIV, syphilis and hepatitis. For this reason, it’s important that an act like rainbow kissing be performed not only by consenting adults, but between partners who are communicative about their STD and STI status, agreeing to get checked regularly. It isn’t something to be indulged in during a one-night stand, nor with someone you don’t have explicit communication with. However, if each consenting partner is actively testing and understands each other’s boundaries, then the act is overall deemed safe.

Navigating Kink Shame

Kink shame, the act of condemning someone for their sexual preferences, interests, or fetishes, is a difficult thing to navigate when you want to experiment. It’s completely objective and varies by perspective, as many could be shamed for the mere desire to masturbate within religious context. Though ultimately, as long as a kink is legal and doesn’t have the capacity to hurt anyone, you should be free to let your freak flag fly.

When navigating a more obscure kink, it’s important to first and foremost relinquish any shame you may be inheriting about yourself. Rainbow kisses fit on the broader spectrum of kinks associated with bodily fluids, and there are many others who enjoy playing with urine, spit, fecal matter, semen or menstrual blood. You’re certainly not alone, nor undesirable. 

While communication may not seem inherently sexy, it’s the bridge that leads to a deeper sense of intimacy and ultimately, sexy consensual intercourse. If you want to have a rainbow kiss with your partner, or any kind of risque act for that matter, talk about it with open honesty. Rather than springing it on them in the middle of the act, curate a fully clothed safe space beforehand to hear and be heard, and maybe even inject a little humor. You could be surprised at their response, or what you learn about each other while navigating such a sensitive topic. If this is truly the person you’re meant to be exchanging energy with, they’d never make you feel bad or dirty for what your body craves.

And if your partner doesn’t match your freak, that’s okay too. It’s crucial that you respect their boundaries, just as you’d like yours respected. You would then be invited to confront where the middle ground to meet is, if you’re willing to keep your fantasies a fantasy, or if you need to move on in order to find your desires satiated.